Tara: A Mahratta Tale

by Meadows Taylor

  CHAPTER IX.

  A thick heavy rain was falling, which had lasted nearly all day withoutintermission, and the afternoon was now advanced. The sky was oneuniform tint of dark grey, in which, near the horizon, some yellowish,lurid colour occasionally appeared. Dark masses of cloud came up slowlyfrom the south-west at times, causing a deeper gloom as they passedoverhead, accompanied by bursts of rain, which sometimes fell insheets, deluging the ground, and dashing up muddy spray from the softearth. The air was stifling; and there was a strong sulphurous smellwith the rain, which increased the disagreeable effect of the close,hot atmosphere. Sometimes a gentle breeze, hardly sufficient to givethe rain a slanting direction, arose, and felt refreshing; but as theheavy clouds passed, it died away, and the rain fell perpendicularlyagain, with a constant monotonous plash, which, coming from a wideplain, sounded like a dull roar.

  Little could be seen of the plain itself; for not only was the rain toothick to allow of any distance to appear definitely, but there was asteamy mist rising from the previously heated earth, which increasedthe already existing dimness and gloom. Sometimes a few trees in thevicinity, which appeared tall and ghostly in the grey light and thickair, stood out more in detail as the rain slackened for a while, andseemed to give promise of breaking; and on these occasions two villagesbecame dimly visible; one of them nearly a mile distant, the otherperhaps half a mile farther, situated to the right and left of what,in dry weather, was a well-beaten road-track, but which could only nowbe known as such, by being bare of grass, and by the slightly raisedbanks, covered here and there by low bushes, which bounded it.

  The place we are about to describe occupied the summit of a smalleminence, below which, in a valley watered by a rivulet, was avillage surrounded by tall crops of grain, now coming into ear,mingled with fields of cotton, as yet very low, and pulse, and othercereals, generally about waist-high. This difference in the heightof the crops left the valley comparatively open; and the road-trackcould be followed by the eye, whenever the mist and rain cleared alittle--through the fields to the gate of the first village, beforewhich there was an open piece of ground, past a small Hindu templesurrounded with trees, and up a slight ascent beyond, to a plain, alongwhich it continued, till it disappeared among the tall jowaree fieldsand other cultivation of the next village. These two villages werecalled the greater and less Kinny.

  The valley, or hollow, was little more than a descent in the undulationof the country; but, when the rain fell heavily at the nearer village,so as almost to conceal it, the effect from the eminence we describewas, as though it were actually deep and broad; and then also thefarther village, with its trees, appeared distant, and sometimes wasnot visible at all. Thus alternating, as sometimes plainly in view, andat others not to be seen, these villages appeared to be objects of deepinterest to three men, who occupied the spot we have just mentioned.Occasionally, and as the rain cleared a little, one or other of themwould proceed to the top of a heap of stones near at hand, and lookanxiously along the line of road, past the fields and the open spacebefore the gate of the first Kinny, up the ascent beyond, and over theplain to the second; and there were moments when a man on horsebackmight easily have been descried even at the further village, certainlyat the second, or between them, had such a person been upon the road;but no one appeared.

  The spot was remarkable as the highest point for a long distance eitherway upon the road-track; and indeed, had the day been clear, a largeextent of country could have been seen from it in all directions. Now,however, the view was very limited; and on the opposite sides fromthe two villages nothing could be seen but a plain, thinly coveredwith grass and bushes, and strewn thickly with black stones, which,uncultivated as it was for miles, looked doubly desolate through themisty air, being partially covered with pools of water of a yellowishbrown colour, the result of the present rain. Over this plain, threeroads or paths diverged from the place the men occupied. The maintrack, which had the appearance of being somewhat beaten, was broaderthan the others, and led westward to the town of Allund, about sixmiles distant,--the others to villages from two to four miles to thesouth and west.

  The plain was, as we have said, very stony, and at the place we alludeto, the heap of stones had been formed gradually by travellers who,coming from all sides, took up one from the path, and threw it, witha prayer to the local divinity, upon the pile. This had been done, nodoubt, for centuries; still the stones upon the path appeared as thickas ever, and sorely impeded and harassed all travellers, whether onfoot or horseback.

  Over this heap of stones grew a large banian, and close to it severalscraggy neem trees; a peepul, too, had once existed, but was dead. Partof the trunk and one large branch remained standing, white and dry, anda portion of another lay on the ground, from which chips of firewoodhad been cut from time to time. It looked as if it had been struck withlightning, which, indeed, was not improbable, as several branches ofthe banian were scathed and riven, probably from the same cause. Ofall these trees, however, the banian or "burr," as it is called in thelanguage of the country, was most remarkable.

  Not possessed of the luxuriant foliage common to this tree in otherplaces, probably because the soil was too poor and rocky, its hugegnarled boughs were bare of small branches and leaves; some were nakedand actually withered, others apparently so, and all stretched theirwhite gaunt arms into the sky, with a wild and ghastly effect againstthe leaden grey of the clouds. In process of the centuries of itsexistence, several boughs had become detached from the parent trunk,and were upheld by stems which had once been pendant roots, and hadstruck into the ground. These portions, if anything more bare, and moregnarled and twisted than the parent tree, rose loftily into the air,and with the same effect we have already noticed.

  The larger boughs and stems were full of holes, which sheltered anumerous colony of small grey tree owls, whose bright yellow eyesstared from behind large boughs, and out of crevices in the trunks, orfrom among the ornaments of the roof of the temple below; while theykept up a perpetual twittering, as if they conversed together, whichindeed perhaps they did. On hot bright days lizards, large and small,crept out of crevices and basked in the sun; and among them a familyof huge black ones, with bright eyes and scarlet throats, which theyinflated as they appeared to swell with importance. Shepherd boysbelieved these to be evil spirits, and if they were brave, pelted themwith stones, or if otherwise ran off, as one of them issued forth andlooked about curiously.

  Some large holes, too, near the top of the tree, contained great hornedowls, which, if attracted by any noise, sat, with stupidly-grave aspectand wide saucer-eyes, looking down upon the road--the tufts of feathersover their ears alternately erected and depressed--till they flew outwith a loud hoot to look for some more undisturbed retreat. These owls,great and small, with the lizards, had the tree, for the most part, tothemselves. Probably there was not enough foliage to tempt other birdsto rest there; for except an occasional wandering flock of chatteringparroquets, mynas, or green pigeons, none frequented it by day. Bynight, however, it was otherwise: for it was then the roosting-placeof the vultures, eagles, and other carrion birds of the district, withwhom the owls did not apparently interfere.

  At the back, partly behind the parent tree and the heap of stones,was a small and evidently ancient Hindu temple, consisting of onechamber and a porch. The chamber was not much larger than sufficed tocontain the image, and allow a priest to officiate before it in caseof necessity, and was too low to admit of a man's standing upright.The porch, which was supported in front by two roughly-hewn stonepillars, was somewhat larger; and the three men we have mentioned,were enabled to sit in it comfortably, protected from the rain. Thedoorway was narrow and low, and the inside of the chamber was dark; buta small Phallic emblem could be seen within set upon a low altar, anda rudely-sculptured stone bull, in a sitting posture, had originallybeen placed before the porch facing the image. The temple, image, andbull showed that the grove had been originally dedicated to Siva, orMahadeo, in the form of tha
t ancient "pillar and calf" worship so fatalto the Israelites of old, and which for them possessed so strange afascination.

  The temple was deserted, and, except on the annual festival of the god,when some priest from a neighbouring village swept out the chamber,brought a light to burn before the image, poured the usual libations,and hung a few garlands of jessamine and marigold flowers over it,no one ever came with intent to worship, and the place was utterlyneglected. Last year's garlands were now but dry brown leaves hangingto a cotton thread; the chamber was dirty, and strewn with dead leaves;the stone bull in front was overthrown, and lying on its side, andeven in bright sunshine the place presented a melancholy, desertedappearance. Sometimes, in the heat of the day, village lads, in chargeof goats and cattle, would meet there, but only in lack of othershelter from the sun; for indeed the spot had an evil reputation, andnot without reason.

  It is not surprising that it was believed to be the resort ofmalignant spirits which love to dwell in such places, and of tricksyand mischievous sprites which inhabited the large holes in the oldtrunks, sharing them with the owls and lizards that lived there: vexedtravellers' horses, causing them to cast shoes in the stones, or ledwayfarers astray, especially at night, among the many paths over thestony plain--or bewitched cows and buffaloes, and dried up their milk.So, ofttimes, shepherds came with flowers, and poured libations of milkand curds, after a rude fashion, over a few large stones which layamong the gnarled roots of the great tree, and had been placed there asdevoted to the local divinities--Fauns and Dryads--and therefore heldin rude reverence; and these, on such occasions, were smeared with redor black powder in a kind of deprecatory worship.

  It was not for these reasons alone that the place was dreaded; ithad, from other causes, even a worse reputation. It was notorious asthe place of meeting for most of the gang robberies in the country;for assemblies of parties of highway robbers, and the distribution ofstolen property. Watchmen on village towers at night, sometimes sawfires twinkling about the temple, and well knew the cause of them;and shepherd boys next day found rude clay crucibles and extinguishedcharcoal fires in one place where the trunk was hollow at the root ofthe tree, and thus knew that gold and silver had been melted there atnight.

  Murder, too, had been done there. On one occasion, not very long ago,several fresh corpses had been found in the old well barely concealedby leaves and bushes; and, more recently, a body found lying onthe road had been dragged from the line of one village boundary toanother--for several boundaries of village lands diverged from thatspot--to escape the king's fine, till it was eaten by vultures andhyenas, and the bones lay and bleached under the great tree for manya day, to the terror of all wayfarers. In short, the place was thusesteemed evil for many reasons; and whether villagers or travellerscame past it by any of the roads over the plain, or from the twoKinnys, alone or in company, they hurried past the temple, breathing aspell or prayer against the ghosts and spirits which dwelt in it, andheartily wishing themselves safe beyond its precincts.